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Reassessing Bush’s approval

In his Nov. 7 letter, Bob Polchow condemns “poorly argued opinion piece[s].” I agree with this statement. Therefore, I am compelled to respond to Polchow.

Polchow cites the demographics of New Orleans to apparently acquit the Bush administration of the accusations leveled by Falco. However, he fails to address the real issues of the incompetence of authorities to properly respond to the disaster and the divisions of race and class revealed by the hurricane.

He completely trivializes the Plame affair by pithily claiming, “some analyst was supposedly outed.” Valerie Plame was a CIA agent. This information was classified until revealed by Robert Novak, according to Patrick Fitzgerald himself. He then accuses Fitzgerald of attempting to “entrap administration officials” as revenge for the election of 2000. Why would Fitzgerald do this? Polchow offers no answer to this question and assumes the reader will take his word for it. While it has not yet been proven that any administration officials violated the law, the scandal has at least revealed its dishonesty.

Polchow describes Samuel Alito’s record as “reassuring.” However, I find it not the least bit reassuring that in the Casey case also cited by Polchow, Alito argued that the state could require that a woman’s husband be notified when a woman seeks an abortion. In fact, many of his opinions have been overturned in the Supreme Court in decisions where O’Connor cast the deciding vote. The confirmation of Alito would undoubtedly move the Supreme Court to the right. I am not attempting to argue that Alito would be a poor Supreme Court Justice, but for Polchow to reproach criticism of the nominee as “uninformed and childish” ignores Alito’s established location in the continuum of judicial philosophies.

I suggest that Polchow digest this and other sets of facts in order to, in time, make a fair assessment of the multitude of controversial issues that have led the public to increasingly express disapproval of President George W. Bush.